Rick Rogers

“And the Earth will rebel against the White Man and against the sons and the daughters of the White Man and they and all their works will be swept aside and it will be as though they never were. And the buffalo will return in his millions and the Plains will be dark with his thunderings. Thus spoke the great Prophet Wodziwob to the Paviotso, thus speak I, Wovoka, to the Sioux. The Ghost Dance is the way. The Ghost Dance is our salvation. The buffalo, the buffalo will come again. They will come again. They will come. They will…”

It’s just a Western theme park, a slightly seedy collection of weathered buildings and aged teepees. Every day the buses come, every day the tourists take their pictures, every day the streets echo with staged gunfights and faked bank robberies. And every day a group of old men stage a dance out of history.

Capital punishment is a terrible thing, they say. It reduces the State to the same level as the Criminal, they say. It must be replaced with something humane, they say. But who is to say what is humane and what isn’t and if the Convicted had a choice, which would they choose?

A man is running, running through the woods, avoiding cities, avoiding his fellow man, running, running. He’s running from the authorities, from his crimes, from an entire world. And most of all he is running from himself and the logically frightening and humane punishment that waits for him if he stops.

Founded in 1984, ATLANTA RADIO THEATRE COMPANY is an Atlanta, GA based non-profit promoting audio drama in all its forms and offering learning opportunities in voice acting, audio production, marketing, live sound, and other aspects of dramatic audio.